FORECASTING ROOM AVAILABILITY
Forecasting room availability is forecasting the number of rooms available for sale on any future date. This type of forecasting helps manage the reservation process, guides the front office staff for an effective rooms management, and can be used as an occupancy forecast, which is, further, useful in attempting to schedule the necessary number of employees for an expected volume of business.
In order to forecast room availability, the following data are needed
- Number of expected room arrivals
- Number of expected room walk-ins
- Number of expected room stayovers
- Number of expected room no-shows
- Number of expected room understays
- Number of expected room check-outs
- Number of expected room overstays
These above-mentioned data help the front office in conduct various daily operational ratios such as:
- No-shows percentage = (number of no-show rooms) / (number of rooms reserved)
- Walk-ins percentage = (number of walk-in rooms) / (total number of rooms arrivals)
- Overstays percentage = (number of overstay rooms) / (number of expected check-outs)
- Understays percentage = (number of understay rooms) / (number of expected check-outs)
The forecasted number of rooms available for sale for any future date can be tracked using the following formula
Forecasted number of rooms available for sale = total number of guest rooms – number of out of order rooms – number of stayovers rooms – number of reserved rooms + number of no-show rooms + number of understay rooms – number of overstay rooms
Under non-automated and semi-automated systems, number of rooms available for sale forecasts are calculated upon demand and need and vary from three-day to ten-day forecasts. However, under fully automated systems, forecasts can be done at any moment for any future period of time. For, computers run forecasts on a room count considerations, hence eliminating tedious labor work and human error margins.
